Who Should You Vote For?

Who to choose...

Every four years the time comes around when we the people must pick a candidate to become our new commander and chief. And while many of the votes get locked up in the electoral college, it is our influence that helps a candidate get elected and it truly makes the biggest difference.

Now, depending on your view of our country currently, we are either on the road to ruin or the road to utopia. Your vote will make or break the path we are currently on, no matter what your perspective of where this road is taking us.

With all that riding on your shoulders, I can understand why it might be difficult to know who to vote for. So it is my goal, with this hub, to provide you with some tips for deciding just who your vote should support.

1: Background Check

Before you consider anything else about a candidate, you should always do some research on their background. Where did they grow up? Have they spend any substantial amount of time working outside of government and politics before?

Where did they go to school, and what did they study? What values did their family have, and where did they grow up? Do they have any associations with businesses, organizations or people you find unfavorable?

Now, be careful not to get to far ahead of yourself when doing a background check. It's not meant to be used as a final judging tool. It's just good to know where a person comes from, what sort of environment they've been in most of their lives and to see what kind of mistakes they might have had the opportunity to learn from.

2: Morality Check

We all have personal and social morals that drive us to do the things we do, want the things we want and act the way we do. Morals are very important on a personal level, and your morals are one way you can potentially connect with a presidential candidate.

So do some research and figure out what each candidates morals are, and see if they are in alignment with your morals.

As an example: Mitt Romney is not aligned with my morals, because he has a nasty habit of disrespecting people he doesn't agree with. Ron Paul is in alignment with my morals because he believes in Freedom above all other things.

Now obviously we all have more than just one moral guideline floating around in our minds, so really take the time to dig and rediscover what your morals are. Then use that as just one more tool to help you decide who to vote for.

3: Values

I know it's very similar to morals, but I personally see values as a separate subject. Morals tend to be heavily swayed by religion, authority influence and heritage, whereas values usually come from life experiences.

Take a minute to think about the things you value in your life. What thoughts, beliefs, actions, attributes, characteristics, behaviors and feelings do you value above all others?

If you aren't quiet sure what your values are, you can ask yourself: "What kinds of people do I hold in high esteem in my life, why do they inspire me so much and what values do these people appear to have?"

Then take the attributes that you value from that person look for those same attributes and values in the candidates.

4: Voting Record

If you can find any information on how each candidate has voted or interacted with law making in any way, you'll be ahead of the crowd. The information is usually (but not always) easy to find, it's just that most people don't want to spend 45 minutes going through it all. Though I can guarantee you that you won't be unhappy that you did it.

It's worth while to check each candidates voting record, so that you can see how decisive they are, and how firm they are in their beliefs, as well as finding out if they have a history for saying they are going to one thing, but voting for the opposite. Or supporting something and then telling you how much they despise it.

5: Social Perception

This is an interesting things to look for, and one of the most revealing.

What you want to do, is research the social networks not only for the public's opinion of each candidate, but for glimpses of each candidates view of the public. With the capabilities of the internet and mobile recording devices, transparency is almost forced on political candidates in the spotlight. They can't run from their actions or rhetoric as well as they used to be able to, and they certainly can't hide anymore.

Figure out what your peers and fellow American's think about each candidate, as well as what each candidate thinks of the issues your peers feel are important, then use that information combined with the other steps, to form your own opinion about each candidate.

Just remember not to blindly follow any one persons opinion. It's best to gain insight from as many people as you can, and then to form your own truths.

6: Whats Your Problem?

Our country is plagued by various problems with varying degrees of importance to different voters. To some it's the need for higher wages, for others it's the fight for equality for homosexuals. You might one who wishes for more freedom and less government, or maybe you'd like to see stronger controls on everything.

There are all sorts of issues that are important to everyone, and it's time you gain some introspectful insight about what issues are most important to you. Once you understand what issues you want supported, decide which ones are "must haves" and which issues you'd be okay with letting go, if the candidate you like best doesn't support it or want to fix it.

7: Qualifications

Although the constitution doesn't clearly give any qualifications other than age and natural citizenship, there are obviously tons of unofficial qualifications that a president really should have (at least in my opinion). Now, everyone has different beliefs about what those qualifications should be, so you'll need to figure out just what prerequisites you require from your national leader.

Some qualifications that I find value in a potential president:

Memorization of the entire Constitution and Bill of Rights

Strong education in American History

Recent experience working outside of the government (domestic blue collar jobs)

Educated in freedom and truly free market economics

I may not have many prerequisites, but it's amazing how so few candidates meet my qualifications. You will have your own qualifications, and you can feel free to add mine to them or disregard them. The point is that you decide what qualifications you'd like your next president to have, and see which candidate most closely meets your requirements.

8: Experience

Do you prefer a president who has been in politics all their life?

Or would you prefer someone with less involvement in government affairs?

9: History

There is always an incumbant, the person already in office, and if they are still eligible for a second term, then they should be taken into consideration. Thankfully, that means that they have a history in office already, and that gives you an opportunity to look back at all the things they have accomplished, failed to complete and simply swept under the rug.

Who will you vote for?

Which 2012 candidate are you going to vote for?

Put it all together

Once you have gone through all these steps, put them all together and then use that information to decide who you will vote for. It really isn't that hard, and makes the decision a lot clearer. And you can do most of this research in less then a day, and then just glance at some election news from time to time, or watch some debates to see if anything important has cropped up with all the candidates, to see if there is any reason you should reconsider other candidates.

Comments

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sending

Rod Martin Jr

6 years agofrom Cebu, Philippines

A useful tool, thanks!

What makes this difficult, though, and a bit disturbing, is the fact that the Corporate media slants things to an extreme extent. I had heard this for decades, but didn't believe it.

Then I moved to the Philippines. For 5 years I've been without the Corporate media kool-aid and can say that I finally see the wisdom in that idea that our TV, radio, newspapers and magazines are heavily biased and have gravely distorted the facts.

This makes it far more difficult to get the facts we all need. Perhaps a good addition to your list is to include a list of sources. YouTube is my current favorite, though I suspect it's becoming less free. There have already been complaints of abuses by Google (YouTube's owner). At YouTube, you can get biased viewpoints, but you get enough varying viewpoints to gain good arguments for both sides.

I wish I had woken up to Ron Paul, earlier. Obama ended up worse than McCain, so I wasted my support for the relative newcomer.

There's still time to restore the Republic, before the bankers close in and turn this place into Gulag America, Inc.

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